Victories

A federal judge recently dismissed a challenge brought by the American Farm Bureau Federation and National Pork Producers Council against the Environmental Protection Agency. The industry groups were seeking to block the federal agency’s ability to release public information regarding highly polluting factory farms to citizens concerned about clean water. Food & Water Watch, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and The Environmental Integrity Project, represented by lawyers at the Government Accountability Project, had intervened in the case on behalf of citizens who have a right to protect their communities and their environment from polluting factory farms and to safeguard open government.

“Many of our public waterways suffer from nutrient impairment and factory farms are some of the biggest nutrient polluters in the country,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “Instead of looking for ways to avoid responsibility by filing these kinds of law suits, maybe Farm Bureau and other industry front groups should be looking for ways to clean up these facilities and make the big meat companies control their pollution.”

If you care about safe, clean, affordable food and water, read more below about Food & Water Watch’s many successes.

Keeping Our Food Safe

We protected the health of our children and families by getting the FDA to set stricter limits on the levels of arsenic in apple juice.

We helped pass legislation in the state of Maryland banning arsenic in chicken feed, making it the first state in the nation to implement such a ban.

We ensured that small family farms and local food processing projects are exempted from food safety regulations designed for large corporations.

We organized a two-year, multifaceted campaign that resulted in Starbucks stopping the use of milk produced with artificial growth hormones in all of their stores.

We worked with the USDA front-line meat inspectors to prevent the weakening of meat inspection regulations in slaughter facilities.

We defended consumers’ right to know through the adoption of mandatory country-of-origin labeling and ensured that technologies like food irradiation continue to be labeled.

Making Seafood More Sustainable

We prevented the adoption of a public policy that would promote factory fish farming in the United States.

Protecting Our Water

We banned fracking in the entire state of New York.

We prevented Veolia Water, a corporation with a history of poor business and environmental practices, from consulting with St. Louis’ public water system.

We helped organize activists to speak out against triclosan. Together we applied so much consumer pressure, Johnson & Johnson is phasing out triclosan from its line of consumer products. Learn more.

We played an important part in the organizing effort to help the New Jersey state legislature pass a ban on fracking.

Our student activists helped ban bottled water on campuses from Humboldt State University to New England College.

We helped stop water privatization and maintain public control over local water systems in dozens of communities across the United States including in Chicago, IL, Stockton, CA, Grand Rapids, MI, and Trenton, NJ.

We worked with community organizations from coast of coast to stop Nestle water bottling facilities including victories in McCloud, CA and Wacissa, FL.

We organized to pass dozens of local measures against fracking in communities across the country.

We helped halt a liquefied natural gas project in New Jersey that would have wreaked havoc on the surrounding marine environment and risked spills and explosions.

Food & Water Watch champions healthy food and clean water for all. We stand up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocate for a democracy that improves people's lives and protects our environment.